I NEVER USED TO SAY NO TO A COOL TRAVEL OPPORTUNITY.

But when my husband asked if I wanted to meet up with him on a work trip to Boston, I hesitated. It meant flying by myself with a 5 month old baby, and then traveling with said baby. How much would that change the dynamic of our trip? Would it be so stressful and exhausting that I’d wish we’d just stayed home?

Ultimately, I decided to go.

I figured Boston would be a great place to travel with a baby. It’s compact, walkable, plus people seem to be really family-oriented based on what I’ve seem of Bostonians in the movies. ALWAYS a good way to judge people and places, right? I mean, Mark Wahlburg is from Boston, and he’s all about “saying hi to your mother for me.”

Just the thought of flying with a baby strikes fear in the hearts of parents.

But when my husband asked if baby Arlene and I wanted to meet up with him during a Boston work trip, I said sure. I can do this! I reasoned that I would’ve gone prior to having a baby, so why let that stop me now?

However, as the trip approached, the panic set in. Here’s every fear that raced through my head prior, followed by how it played out in real life.

* * *

Fear: Getting all the crap from the car into the airport.

I hate lugging my own suitcase. How in the hell am I supposed to carry a suitcase, stroller, carseat, diaper bag and live, tiny human through the airport?

The idea of eating my placenta grosses me out.

Do you throw it on a grill, like a steak? Maybe slice it thin and use in a stir fry? Steam it? Ew, ew, and definitely ewwww.

And yet, the purported benefits of consuming placenta after birth intrigued me. Allegedly, it increases your energy (definitely a plus), helps with milk production and is said to lessen postpartum depression. Plus, many animals consume their own placentas in the wild, which sounds like a reason why you might want to do it. We are animals, after all.

Then again, tigers are known to eat their young and my dog’s favorite food is rabbit poop. So…

Postpartum depression topped my list of birth fears.

Depression runs in my family (LOL doesn’t it run in everyone’s family?!). The thought of drowning in overwhelm and sadness– all while needing to care for a baby– scared … Read more

“It’s not that bad.”

… said every person about having a C-section.

My OB said it’s a quick surgery and I’d be walking the following day. Our birthing class grazed over C-sections; most of my favorite pregnancy websites hardly talk about them at length. So it must not be that bad, right?

Sorta…

My baby was breech and at 37 weeks, my doctor and I decided to schedule a C-section. In the two weeks leading up to my surgery, I barely found any helpful info online. Frustrating, considering something like 30 percent of American mothers give birth via C-section

So here’s a exhaustive list of everything I wish I’d known before having a C-section.

The bad news? It’s unpleasant. The good news? A month into your recovery, you’ll feel pretty good, thinking to yourself, “Hey, that wasn’t that bad!” Ha. Hahahah. Really, you will think this.

In the days before…

In ninth grade, a male friend of mine tackled me on a bed during a party and “pretended” to hump me. I laughed it off because I was embarrassed.

While interning with the Minnesota Twins, a pitcher from another team held two fingers to his mouth, wagging his tongue between them while two teammates spewed disgusting language at me in Spanish. I understood every word. At the time, I was escorting two 6-year-old children to the field. No bigs!

In college, a “friend” of mine figured out where I was going every weekend night, then creepily followed me home every evening. Once I got home, he’d call me four or five times throughout the night. It happened for a full semester, even after I asked him to stop.

When I was 23, a very large man approached me at a bar two blocks from my house. He asked if … Read more